


Float like a feather toy sting like a lazer pointer

by vegalocity



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: 2012 Avengers style, Eiffel has issues, Everyone has to live together for a bit, Fluff, Gen, cat fic, everyone gets a cat, therapy cats
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-02
Updated: 2016-08-02
Packaged: 2018-07-28 23:14:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7660897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vegalocity/pseuds/vegalocity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Cat AU, but not that kind of cat AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	Float like a feather toy sting like a lazer pointer

**Author's Note:**

> This was a gift for a secret Santa on Tumblr. I was assigned [This cool cat!](the10dualcommandments.tumblr.com/) and they were pretty much okay with anything Wolf so long as it wasn't Romance oriented, so here I present: A Cat Fic, no not that kind of Cat Fic

This was easily the worst legal settlement most of them could have ever considered. If there was anything that could be said for Goddard Futuristsics it was that they had far too good of lawyers. 

There were a lot of things that they offered to do for the crew to keep their mouths shut about the things that had happened on the Haphaestus. 

Setting up a small lab for Hilbert to continue his work (so long as Decima has improved enough to remain viable in rodents), complete Eiffel's prison sentence and get him on parole like his contract had promised, come clean about the things they'd done to their crew and take responsibility (just so long as no mentions of Extraterrestrials were mentioned), de-classify all of Lovelace's files and those of her crew, send out dazzling words of recommendation for anything any of them happened to want to continue on with. 

They'd even taken the initiative to upload Hera's prersonality matrix into a big house. More than big enough for a dozen people, let alone the five that would be living there.

It's not that nobody appreciated the benefits that had come along with this.. 'settlement of silence' as it were, but nobody was all too thrilled to be forced into living together for some indeterminate period of time until news of 'Hapaestus: prisoners of war on their own ship' or whatever had faded. 

They were near a forest at least, so Commander Minkow... Renee could hike for miles with her husband. 

Doug was sure Captain Lovela...Isabelle was more than happy to keep as far away from the rest of them as possible most days. The long week where everyone was far too happy to be back on Earth and crammed themselves in the living room with stacks upon stacks of junkfood nonwithstanding. 

Doug was man enough to admit to himself that the very distinct lack of Dr. Hilbert was a comfort (Dr. Volodin? Eiffel wasn't sure of two things, if he'd rather go by his given name now and if he cared enough to use it) He spent most days in his new private lab that nobody bothered to check up on him in. 

Since Decima seemed to be finally working (and while Eiffel would never _ever_ forgive anyone involved in him being an unwilling test subject, his fingernails and full, if slow growing, head of hair softened the blow, if only a little bit) He was probably just trying to figure out what the hell to do with the rest of his life. 

Renee and her husband (David apparently) had very quickly claimed the master bedroom on the second floor, the only one with a balcony too. While sure the whole 'there's two of them' argument was strong, and Doug was quickly growing fond of his decently sized room with it's single, if large, window, he still felt the littlest bit cheated. 

Everything about his living situation at the moment was so surreal. Even If he was interested in getting involved in the dating pool again, which at the moment, was a no until people stopped recognizing him immediately from the various news articles, It wasn't like he could bring any of his dates home. Nah, with his luck Renee would be going out to some shooting range, Doc would be running around with some sort of Super Secret Plant Monster 2.0 Baby, and Hera would decide now was a good time to...manually....double check the Fire alarms in the house. 

No... Until all of this blew over and he was allowed to get an apartment on his own... No dating. 

But he was okay with that. He needed to be less of a hot mess before he dragged someone else onto the flames with him anyway. He'd figure it out, Assigned therapist or not, he'd figure it out.

Chronic Depression and Acute Stress Disorder his butt.

* * *

A cat was in the kitchen.

He'd just wandered his way downstairs for some Midnight Toaster Oven Waffles, and there it was, Bright green eyes flickering yellow in the dim stove overhand light, sitting there, staring at him. 

Naturally, he was a little wierded out.

“Heeera?” he drawled, eyes slowly creeping up toward one of the many, many videocameras Hera saw through. “Why is there suddenly a cat?”

“Oh!” Hera chimed, as though it were a surprise. “That, is Artemis.” She announced through the speaker just above the light switch. “She's my cat.”

What

“You have a cat now?”

“Yup! I saw her staring at one of my cameras from the backyard and with those big beautiful eyes... how could I say no?” The cat... Artemis apparently, began to groom herself, he could already imagine being nagged into cleaning up the cat fur as though the whole thing were his idea. Her long tortoise shell fur looked almost black and gold in the dim light.

“I'm guessing no force in this star system would get you to make her an Outdoor cat?”

“Nope!” Of course.

“Right. Well, You have to break the news of our new house guest to the Commander, I love you baby but I ain't taking that bullet.”Hera made one of those kind of static-y noises that he was pretty sure was supposed to be a scoff. 

“Oh don't worry Doug, I can handle her.” Did he ever mention how excited he was that most Hera's decorum protocols, things that made her more likely to call everyone by their ranks and last names, were gone now? Because that was nice. 

He was glad someone was willing to call him by his name around here.

“Does she have her shots?”

“I've already scheduled a visit with a local veterinarian.”

And he liked cats, he really did, but somehow he had the feeling this was only the beginning.

* * *

He was right.

Not only was Artemis an immediate hit with Renee and David, but even Isabelle started coming out more with the express purpose of petting the cat. 

“I'm more of a dog person, but I like cats.” was all she had to say when Doug had tried questioning her. 

Artemis, according to a vet, must have been abandoned by her owners, she wasn't chipped, no collar, but she was spayed and she'd had all of her shots. 

That news sort of Did something to Isabelle when she'd heard it. She'd just kind of grinned sadly and mumbled something he couldn't hear. 

That night, right around seven o'clock, Isabelle came through the front door, a rare occurrence in and of itself, but under her arm she had a cardboard box with holes in the sides. 

He already sort of knew what was within, but he still approached and asked the obvious. 

“Whatcha' got there?”

“This is Buffy, I saw her at the shelter.”

An adult black cat blinked it's big blue eyes up at Doug from the opened flaps of the box. 

* * *

Artemis and Buffy really seemed to get along with eachother, female cats apparently didn't get along well, at least so said that 3AM google search he did one night after a particularly frustrating array of nightmares. 

Sure, they hissed at eachother a lot at first, and they still did a lot of kitty rumbles, but they stopped pissing on every available surface once Renee first got that pheromone spray. 

“It's supposed to be unscented to us, but Cats don't like it.” She'd explained as she'd pointedly placed it infront of him. She knew that since none of them were technically stationed together anymore, she wasn't actually the boss of him, But honestly, Doug was in no mood to risk her wrath at the time, so he grumbled and nabbed the spray bottle before getting to work.

He was just to spray every carpeted area in the house, simple enough; he got it done about two times longer then he could have out of pure spite. 

“Eiffel, if we're going to be keeping these cats we're all chipping in. David and I pay for food and toys, Lovelace is on litterboxes, and you spray that and clean up when they get petty.”

“As... Flattering, as being Cat janitor really is—and don't get me wrong Commander, I enjoy the spray and pray method as much as the next guy—are any of us, Your husband aside, really good for the whole cat owning thing? Most of us still drop things expecting them to float in place.” Renee's brow furrowed, a sort of solemnity settling over his features that he hadn't really been intending for.

“We need some grounding force here Doug, you know that.” She reached over, as though the action took a lot more effort than it looked, and patted his shoulder. “It's good for all of us to have animals in the house that don't go into space.”

And what exactly was he supposed to say to that?

“Aye Aye, Commander.”

“Renee.” He saluted her with the spray bottle and she rolled her eyes. But he could see her holding back a grin as she turned and left.

* * *

“He just followed us home from our run! Aren't shortnoses so ugly?!” David Kodelka was an interesting guy. He wasn't near as stuck up as he'd expected him to be. He appreciated some of Doug's humor at least, and really that as all he needed in a guy friend.

But why was everyone adopting cats? Why was this the thing that was happening? 

David was holding a cat right up to Doug, who'd just been about to leave for a grocery run, when Renee and David burst through the door, David holding a longhaired white cat. 

And yes, it was a very ugly little guy, but ugly in that way that was almost cute. It couldn't look at him directly, so it was wall eyed, even as it gave him the stink eye. 

“What's his name? Muppet?” David's brows shot up in surprise. He turned the cat in his arms so he could look at the ugly little fluffball.

“Snowball.” Renee cut in. “because of his fur.”

“He does look a bit like a muppet doesn't he?”

“I am not giving our cat some ridiculous name. He's a white cat, his name is Snowball.” Quick as she could without upsetting the cat, she snatched him from her husband's grasp and walked through the living room toward the kitchen. 

“Hera, can you call that veterinarian you got for Artemis?”

“Way ahead of you, Renee!”

Three. They now had three cats.

* * *

Snowball really was an ugly little thing, but he was also needy as all hell when it came to attention; so pretty much, when Doug wasn't going on therapist perscribed walks, or just being out of the house in general, he had a lapful of ugly flatfaced white cat. 

Apparently the eternal angry face didn't actually make Snowball an angry cat. Something that was very much unlike Buffy, who hated him, or Artemis, who would slow blink imperiously at him from that Cat jungle gym that Hera had ordered super quickly after there were suddenly three cats in the house. 

But there was only so much cat hair one person could stand at a time until Renee was giving him that look that meant 'break out the vacuum'

What he was saying here was that he was avoiding vacuuming and didn't want to just hide in the bathroom. 

The kitchen and all three bathrooms were tile, everything else was carpet. 

Except for....

“Officer Eiffel.”

“...Hey Doc.” The Good Doctor didn't move to let him into the lab, one of the only cat hair-less places in the house that didn't smell like Pine Sol or out in the open for a free serving of Renee Minkowski wrath. 

“Why are you here.” It was more of a demand than a question, and frankly not one that Doug was all too comfortable answering. Unfortunately, in this situation, he didn't have much of a choice.

“The cats are everywhere, even if I lock myself in a room one of them somehow was in there when I locked it. I just need five minutes to sit quietly without a furball getting hacked onto my lap Doctor. I swear I'll just curl up in a corner and be silent, I just need to get away from the cats.” Maybe it was just the paranoia talking but he could have sworn he'd already heard the confused yowl of a certain ugly cat looking for a lap to cuddle in.

His expression was unmoved from Doug's plea, only a single brow raised in, what he could only assume, was incredulity.

“And you assume my lab is safe space, yes?” Doug almost sighed in relief, Was he coming around? He was wasn't he! Finally he could be in a room of the house that didn't have enough cat fur in it to build an entire fourth cat. 

“Yes.” he responded. 

Oh...

Oh he did not like that grin, did not like it at all.

“Very Bad news for you then Douglas.” A pit dropped into his stomach as he watched Hilbert slowly reach down to pat at the pocket of the ratty jacket he was wearing (and he was going extra slow to drag out the torture, he could tell)

“Say Privet, Olga.” The tiniest little head of a Calico kitten poked it's way from his jacket pocket at the gentle prodding. It couldn't have been any older than a couple of weeks, opening it's tiny mouth to let out a small squeak which couldn't even be considered a true cat noise. 

“...No...”

“Runt of litter, found her in box while on assigned grocery store trip.”

“No....”

“Was simple enough to bring her to health. Will always be small, yes, but we are in same boat on that, no?”

“ _No!_ ”

He didn't think the doctor was capable of being cheeky, but the smug grin on his face couldn't be described as anything else. 

“You were expecting different, Douglas?”

He was so lucky he was the one with his hand on the doorknob, Doug may have slammed it in Dmitri's smug face if he'd had it.

“What is with everyone in this house and cats?!” he finally screeched, though, yelped was probably a better word. 

“Well domesticated cats are commonl-”

“I don't want an answer!” With that he turned on his heel and stalked off. Dmitri's amused chuckling following behind him like some sort of annoying bug.

* * *

He didn't think he'd miss rainy weather as much as he had. Of course they'd come back to Earth in the dead of summer, so the first rain of autumn was everyone's first rain in god knew how long.

And he _could_ have joined Renee and Isabelle sitting in the backyard like a couple of turkeys, or he _could_ have sat under the dry porch with David and Dmitri and just enjoyed the temperature and the sound.

But He really didn't want to.

He'd decided now would be a really great time for one of his therapist prescribed walks, so off he went, umbrella hanging around it's chord from his wrist as he walked in the deluge.

The water felt great, cold and sharp and leaving behind a pleasant numb feeling along the surface of his skin. 

Best part, nobody wanted to talk to the soaking wet weirdo walking alone around town, so he didn't have to worry about being social!

Wow to think he'd started worrying about being social with people...

Anyway...So here he was, trudging around in the rain, looking considerably more miserable than he felt. 

He was humming Purple rain to himself, so he'd barely heard it at first. 

A low sort of growl noise from a nearby alley. It had put him off for a moment, silently expecting some sort of wild thing, raccoon or dog, but maybe space had seriously lowered his survival instinct to anything that wasn't aliens or guns or syringes filled with things he didn't know. 

So he carefully, more curious than threatened, walked up to the source of the growling and peeked into the darkness. 

A bedraggled black and white cat was looking at him pathetically from it's spot in a soaking wet box.

Its growls stopped abruptly and it began to whine, almost pathetically, up at him. One of it's hind legs was pretty clearly broken, and there was some sort of matted grossness along it's neck.

Dammit he could hear it purring from here. 

He was gonna have to do the right thing here wasn't he?

“Okay, okay, I here ya you fleabag...” he reached forward, ready to pull back if it swiped at him, but it kept blinking up at him with it's big yellow eyes and sort of went limp in his arms. 

“Probably not very warm, but I'll get you to the vet.”

* * *

He hadn't been very interested in getting the name of the veterinarian that had looked after Hera and Renee's cats, so he'd just asked directions to the nearest cat clinic, and gone there.

The woman that was at the reception jumped and looked at him with some sort of almost horror. But honestly he couldn't blame her. He must have looked horrible, wet and ragged holding a purring but equally wet cat with a broken leg.

“Uhm, I came to drop it off.” He said simply, holding the cat out at arms length. “I found it in an alley and it looks like it needs help.”

She smiled slightly, nervously, and informed him that Dr. Harrison was free for most of the day, before all too quickly running off to go 'fetch her' (hardy har)

The cat was curled up in his lap before he could even think to place it on it's own seat in the waiting room. He was probably just warm, wet but warm. 

The door creaked open within a few seconds of him sitting down so he didn't feel too bad about immediately lifting up the cat and offering him to the vet.

The vet, a woman with dark skin and a big fluffy ponytail, took the cat from him with a small smile. 

“And who is this sweet little boy?” The cat, a he apparently, was purring again, snuggling up against her dry , probably warm, vet coat. She gestured with her head for Doug to follow her.

“Uh he's not my....”

“Come in, I need an extra set of hands and I think you scared Chandra.”

So there he was, holding the cat around it's middle as it yowled in pain as the vet realigned it's leg, wrapped it, and shaved the matting from it's wet fur to inspect the rash on it's neck. 

“What's his name again?”

“He doesn't have one he's not my-”

“Well that's a shame, he should have a name! He's a cat not a pet rock!”

“Well he's not my cat.”

“He certainly seems to have warmed up to you! He didn't even spray in your arms in anger!” He would have been a lot more confused at that comment if he didn't already know first hand that cats piss everywhere when they're angry. 

“Fine. He's all black except for those white splotches right?”

“They're normally referred to as Tuxedo Cats sir..”

“Felix.”

“Felix?” At Doug's nod the Vet turned back to the cat as she covered his neck with some sort of ointment. 

“Do you like that? Felix?” the cat let out a low meow as she got out the towels. 

“Help me dry him off Mr....?”

“Eiffel. It's ah... it's Doug Eiffel.”

“Natalie Harrison, pleased to meet you.” She quickly shook his hand and handed him a towel.

* * *

He used the umbrella on the walk home.

And well... he wasn't exactly vocal about the frankly absurd amount of cats in the house. He just was... a little perturbed at how quickly all of them seemed to adopt a little fleabag. 

Renee and Isabelle had no right to be as smug as they were when he came back with Felix under his arm. Neither of them were any semblance of dry, but better off than when he'd been at the vet.

“Before either of you say anything...”

“So, Doug, what's his name?”

“You need the address for the pet store?”

“I'm just keeping him while his leg heals, the vet said he couldn't have the cast on when he gets to the ASPCA.”

“Riight...” Isabelle rolled her eyes and reached out for Felix. He sniffed her fingers but didn't do much else beyond blink up at her. 

“Doug, you may want to put him down, let him explore on his own terms.”

“He's got a cast Renee, he can't exactly climb stairs like that.” Hera took then to make her own delight known

“At least let him get to know the other kittens! I'm sure Snowball will be happy to not be the only boy cat anymore!”

As though summoned by his name the flatfaced white puffball suddenly crawled atop the sofa near the entry way, staring with his wall eyes at Felix. 

Felix stared back and began to wriggle in Doug's Grip.

He huffed and placed Felix down, the cat began to clumsily make it's way to the sofa, hobbling on his cast and rumbling low in his throat. 

Snowball purred at him from his perch.

* * *

He was rubbing ointment on Felix's neck, the purring from his chest practically a chainsaw in the otherwise quiet room.

Felix was purring and Doug had to look the dang thing in the eye and remind it it was getting dropped off at the shelter the second it didn't need his help to exist.

“Are you quite sure he stays only for a small time, Douglas?”

Of course.

“Come on Doc, the one time You're out of your cave this month and you have to hassle me?”

“I would hardly call laboratory a 'cave'.” Dmitri was looming from the corner of his eye, the knowing smirk on his face far more annoying than it should have been. 

“Whatever, and yes, there are more than enough cats in this house, we're all gonna collectively become the crazy cat lady at this point.”

“And yet you handle cat far too delicately for simply caring for his health.” There was a tiny mewl from Hilbert's jacket and he hesitated only for a moment before pulling his kitten from out of the back of his hood. (Jack In the Box Jesus was that just where the dang thing slept?)

“Olga should start socializing with other cats, Good for pack instinct.” Olga mewled squeakily and slowly trotted her way across the couch after Dmitri placed her down, sniffing the new terrain and eventually coming up to Doug and Felix.

Felix leaned down a bit, now that his neck was free from his ointment treatment. And he began to sniff her back.

She squeaked, he meowed. She stood on her hind legs to paw at his face, he started purring and licked her head.

Dmitri looked more than a little pleased. Doug was more than a little irritated.

“Come on Felix, you should know better than to associate with anyone affiliated with the Black Widow himself.”

“Spiders have nothing to do with pack instincts.”

“She's a comic book character.” Dmitri shrugged. 

“Still relevant. His name is Felix, no?” Dammit

“Yeah, like Felix the cat.”

“Indeed he is.” 

“Okay now I know you're just messing with me. Felix the cat is up there with Steamboat Willie, that's not just an American thing that's an Evolution of Animation thing! You gotta know at least that Doc!” Dmitri turned and started to leave the room. 

“Enjoy your socializing, Olga, Snowball will be next.”

“Don't give me that Dmitri!”

* * *

_Hot and cold at the same time. Feeling his body loose it's strength every time he woke up, the chill that didn't leave him for the longest time, things bleeding that shouldn't bleed, hair coming off in clumps, nails turning purple, then black, then coming off._

_Voices, nonstop voices, people he lost people he cared about, telling him things he already knew, the only thing he could do to stave off madness was invite it in and accept it._

_Knowing beyond all knowledge that he was going to die alone, voice lost in the endless void, and if his remains were ever found then all people will know was that he tried to stay alive. He'd failed._

_He'd failed and he was gone. A voice in the void._

_He was as good as dead but he may as well have been from the second he'd said yes to going into space._

The pod had gone dark, even the Aux lights that he thought were supposed to stay on no matter what were off. His breaths were short, the Life Support was supposed to be amazing so why was it that he couldn't breathe? Oh god what if even the emergency power was off? Was that what was happening? The power shut off and he ran out of air?!

He struggled his way from the uncomfortable sleeping bag, already feeling a little lightheaded from the lack of O2 in the air. There was a rumbling from outside, was... was that the hull of this useless little escape pod? Was it breaking?

Oh god...this was it, this was it.

A sharp yowl in the air punctured his thoughts, he felt a fluffy head and whiskers rub up against his skin.

The meows didn't stop until he felt a bundle of fur in his lap, the heavy purr from a cat's belly ringing in his ears and the scrape of a plastiglass cast rubbing at his thigh.

Felix mewled at him and Doug slowly reached his hand over to scratch behind his ear.

He was on the floor. He didn't run into a wall after flopping about in the escape pod. He didn't force his way from one of the two sleeping bags Lovelace had fitted the shuttle with, he'd wrestled his way from his blankets and fallen out of bed. 

The pounding outside was from the rain not the hull cracking.

Felix rubbed his head against Doug's fingers and he didn't even jump in place when Hera's voice rang in the darkness.

“Doug? Are you okay?”

He took a deep breath, the vibration from Felix's purrs a comfoting presence. 

“Yeah... yeah... just a nightmare. I'll be fine.”

Breathing excessive, Like usual.

3 Am blinked at him with it's usual green glare. He lifted Felix with him as he found the strength in his legs to stand. 

“Come on buddy, let's see if they have any cat beds on Amazon.”

* * *

Noone was surprised when Felix's cast came off, but he did not leave. Then his fur grew in where the rash had once been, and he remained in the house. Beyond one or two knowing looks from virtually everyone with eyes in the house, nobody commented on it either when the newest cat bed came in the mail. 

He and Artemis hit it off really well, He'd gotten Buffy to let Doug pet her without scratching at him for the first time. And he and Snowball may as well have adopted Olga. 

This was his life now. May as well just let the dang fleabags treat him like terrain like they so clearly wanted.


End file.
